According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the US government is willing to allow carmakers to lower the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) of their future trucks and SUVs at a slower rate than normal cars.
In return, the Obama administration wants to reach a deal by early next week that will allow the government to improve mileage standards from today’s target of 35.5 mpg (6.6 lt/100 km) by 2016 to 56 mpg (4.2 lt/100 km) by 2025 for both cars and light trucks, leaving the automakers a longer period of time to bring their large trucks, pickups and SUVs in line.
This is a step back for the administration, which last spring wanted to impose a fuel consumption standard of 60 mpg (3.9 lt/100 km) or even higher CAFE but met strong opposition from automakers like GM and Chrysler.
In order to achieve its goals the administration is willing to let the fuel consumption of light trucks improve at a rate of 3.5% annually, which is 1.5% lower than the annual rate imposed on cars.
Still, it all depends on Detroit’s Big 3, as despite the advances of foreign carmakers like Toyota, GM, Chrysler and Ford still dominate the segment of large tracks with models like the Ford F-Series and the Ram series.
On the other hand, Japanese and Korean automakers who are doing better than their US rivals in SUV segment with vehicles like Toyota’s RAV-4, complained to government officials that the proposed rules give an unfair advantage to US carmakers.
Via Autonews
